Fortnightly Biology Newsletter

FORTNIGHTLY BIOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3, No. 6
A brief report prepared by the Faculty of the Section of Biological Sciences Purdue University at Fort Wayne
December 13, 1971
ACUPUNCTURE, a branch of Chinese medicine, can cure blindness, deafness, fatal heart, lung disease, and cancer. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Great Britain recently sent a medical team to China to observe Chinese medical techniques. Following are some remarks made by the members: "It seems," said Dr. Harvey J. Medhurst of Health Institute, London, "that the Chinese have swept away some of the barriers in medicine which we in the West have always regarded as insurmountable, and performed one miracle after another." "I no longer dare sneer at so-called backward Chinese medicine because it is quite obvious to me that those people know a great deal more than we do in several highly important areas of medical treatment." "There is absolutely no question in my mind," Dr. Anna Cummins told MIDNIGHT, "that China is really advanced in limb restoration techniques and burns therapy." Dr. George E. Dean spent eleven months as an observer in a Peking cancer ward. "The ward contained 20 patients," Dr. Dean said. "Eight of them would have been called terminal in any American or British Hospital. "They (the Chinese doctors) said these apparently dying patients would be up and about in a month or so. "I didn't wish to be impolite so I said nothing. But I fully expected to spend my time in that ward watching those eight people die off one at a time, and in pretty short order. But I was in for surprise. "Not one of them died. When I left the hospital eleven weeks later, two of the eight had been sent home cured, and the other six were well on the road to recovery. "Chinese medicine is, in my opinion, the best in the world. In my report, I am urging that the British government send teams of specialists over there as soon as possible to learn everything they can about the Chinese methods. "If we do that, we'll have cancer licked in two years!" In another hospital, Dr. Dean saw acupuncture specialists treat and cure patients suffering from a variety of diseases, ranging from sprains, heart ailments, dermatitis, to nervous, respiratory, urinary and reproductive system diseases. Dr. Dean, in Peking Medical College, witnessed the use of acupuncture in place of anesthetic in delicate lung operations. He also witnessed the blind being cured. "The Chinese say that only certain eye diseases can be cured with acupuncture--but the point is that in the West we have not even begun to find a cure for any of these ailments." Dr. Louis S. D. Lawson, another member of the team, saw a group of children dance. They were cured from horribly misshapen and paralyzed limbs. Similar results are being achieved with deaf children. "Frankly," Dr. Medhurst said, "the whole thing might be a little frightening if it weren't for the fact that the doctors I talked to over there made it clear that as far as they are concerned, everything they develop will be made available to the rest of the world just as fast as the rest of the world expresses interest in it. "Sickness and ill health is an international problem, they told me. And they don't intend to come up with cures for this and that, and then reserve it only for the Chinese people." MIDNIGHT 11 Nov 1 1971 PC
• • •
DEATH SENTENCE for the Mediterranean Sea: California's Center for Institutional Studies has written a death warrant for the polluted Mediterranean Sea. The life giving oxygen which keeps a sea "alive" is becoming rapidly depleted. About 19,600 cubic miles of surface water flows into the Mediterranean from the North Atlantic each year. This water is becoming progressively more polluted. In the reverse direction, about 18,600 cubic miles of cold, dense water flows outward into the Atlantic near the ocean floor. In this way, there is a complete turnover of water every 80 years. However, the source of all this water, primarily the North Atlantic, was described recently by Thor Heyerdahl during the voyage of RA-II: "We saw visible oil pollutants 43 out of 57 days during our crossing from Morocco to Barbados ... on the worst days we came into water where we could not wash ourselves ... in fact, we could not dip a bucket into the water unless it would be filled with lumps of oily matter." Previous work by Lord Ritchie-Calder demonstrated that one gallon of oil depletes about 100,000 gallons of sea water of its oxygen content. This situation is being perpetuated by the tons of massive surpluses of two world wars. Governments often times have not disclosed what they dump, nor where they dump it. "No international register of such disposals exists, and many governments are no longer aware of what they did with all of it." Recently, abnormally high levels of arsenic were discovered in the Baltic. Forty years ago 7,000 tons of arsenic had been dumped into the Baltic "sealed" in concrete containers. During World War II allied ships carrying 1,740,250 tons of ammunition, chemical weapons, fuel oil, and other petro-chemicals were sunk in the North Atlantic. Many of the presently "unidentifiable" oil slicks may be due to the break up of these ships. Further contributing to this problem, other sources of oxygen supply such as the Provencal Basin, the upper Adriatic, and the Aegean are even more polluted than the Mediterranean due to a combination of existing wind patterns and man introduced pollutants. It is likely that this combination of factors may succeed in turning the Mediterranean Sea into an "outsize dustpan." L.A. TIMES-POST Nov 25 1971 p8D PFG
• • •
SCIENTISTS at the National Institute of Health inserted a mutant of phage lambda, a virus that naturally infects the bacterium Escherichia coli into human cell cultures. The human cells were derived from a patient suffering from galactosemia, a disease in which there is a lack of the enzyme that breaks down the sugar galactose. The phage lambda contains the galactose operon--the gene required for the synthesis of the transferase enzyme--the enzyme missing from the galactosemic mammalian cells and which is required for breaking down galactase. The cells containing the phage lambda was able to produce biologically active enzyme. These results show that bacterial genes can be biologically active in mammalian cells. Further it establishes the universal nature of the genetic code. Such studies are bringing genetic engineering closer to a practical reality. BIOMEDICAL NEWS (Nov 1971) p3 SFG SFG
• • •
THE COMPLEX LUNG and air sac system of birds provides for one directional flow of gases through the lungs at all times. The direction of gas flow through the lungs is opposite the direction of blood flow. The end result of this countercurrent flow is that more O2 and CO2 can be exchanged than would be possible if bird lungs were mammalian in structure. This permits birds to fly and function normally at altitudes greater than 6,000 meters, the limit for moderately active functioning of man after long acclimatization. Scientific American 225 72 Dec 1971 (student) RB
• • •
CARBON MONOXIDE toxicity is due to binding with hemoglobin with a resultant decrease in oxygen tension in peripheral capillaries. Carbon monoxide has a stronger affinity for hemoglobin than oxygen probably due to the difference in electronegativity between the carbon and oxygen atoms and the resultant high polarity of the carbon monoxide molecule. Surprisingly, cigarette smoking outweighs the contribution made by traffic to carbon monoxide pollution. N.Y. ACADEMY SCIENCES 174 135 (1970) BB
• • •
NINE COUNTIES in the northeastern corner of Indiana make up Economic Region 3. Its 1970 population of just under 1/2 million made it the third ranking area in the state, with approximately 9.5% of Indiana's population.
Table 3-1. Population, Each County, Region 3, Each Census, 1900 through 1970
County 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
Adams 22,232 21,840 20,503 19,957 21,254 22,393 24,643 26,871
Allen 77,270 93,386 114,303 146,743 155,084 183,722 232,196 280,455
DeKalb 25,711 25,054 25,600 24,911 24,756 26,023 28,271 30,837
Huntington 28,901 28,982 31,671 29,073 29,931 31,400 33,814 34,970
Lagrange 15,284 15,148 14,009 13,780 14,352 15,347 17,380 20,890
Noble 23,533 24,009 22,470 22,404 22,776 25,075 28,162 31,382
Steuben 15,219 14,274 13,360 13,386 13,740 17,087 17,184 20,159
Wells 23,449 22,418 20,509 18,411 19,099 19,564 21,220 23,821
Whitley 17,328 16,892 15,660 15,931 17,001 18,828 20,954 23,395
Region 3 Total 248,927 262,003 278,085 304,596 317,993 359,439 423,824 492,780
INDIANA STATE BD. HEALTH BULLETIN Nov 1971 BB
• • •

Click tabs to swap between content that is broken into logical sections.

FORTNIGHTLY BIOLOGY NEWSLETTER
Vol. 3, No. 6
A brief report prepared by the Faculty of the Section of Biological Sciences Purdue University at Fort Wayne
December 13, 1971
ACUPUNCTURE, a branch of Chinese medicine, can cure blindness, deafness, fatal heart, lung disease, and cancer. The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons in Great Britain recently sent a medical team to China to observe Chinese medical techniques. Following are some remarks made by the members: "It seems," said Dr. Harvey J. Medhurst of Health Institute, London, "that the Chinese have swept away some of the barriers in medicine which we in the West have always regarded as insurmountable, and performed one miracle after another." "I no longer dare sneer at so-called backward Chinese medicine because it is quite obvious to me that those people know a great deal more than we do in several highly important areas of medical treatment." "There is absolutely no question in my mind," Dr. Anna Cummins told MIDNIGHT, "that China is really advanced in limb restoration techniques and burns therapy." Dr. George E. Dean spent eleven months as an observer in a Peking cancer ward. "The ward contained 20 patients," Dr. Dean said. "Eight of them would have been called terminal in any American or British Hospital. "They (the Chinese doctors) said these apparently dying patients would be up and about in a month or so. "I didn't wish to be impolite so I said nothing. But I fully expected to spend my time in that ward watching those eight people die off one at a time, and in pretty short order. But I was in for surprise. "Not one of them died. When I left the hospital eleven weeks later, two of the eight had been sent home cured, and the other six were well on the road to recovery. "Chinese medicine is, in my opinion, the best in the world. In my report, I am urging that the British government send teams of specialists over there as soon as possible to learn everything they can about the Chinese methods. "If we do that, we'll have cancer licked in two years!" In another hospital, Dr. Dean saw acupuncture specialists treat and cure patients suffering from a variety of diseases, ranging from sprains, heart ailments, dermatitis, to nervous, respiratory, urinary and reproductive system diseases. Dr. Dean, in Peking Medical College, witnessed the use of acupuncture in place of anesthetic in delicate lung operations. He also witnessed the blind being cured. "The Chinese say that only certain eye diseases can be cured with acupuncture--but the point is that in the West we have not even begun to find a cure for any of these ailments." Dr. Louis S. D. Lawson, another member of the team, saw a group of children dance. They were cured from horribly misshapen and paralyzed limbs. Similar results are being achieved with deaf children. "Frankly," Dr. Medhurst said, "the whole thing might be a little frightening if it weren't for the fact that the doctors I talked to over there made it clear that as far as they are concerned, everything they develop will be made available to the rest of the world just as fast as the rest of the world expresses interest in it. "Sickness and ill health is an international problem, they told me. And they don't intend to come up with cures for this and that, and then reserve it only for the Chinese people." MIDNIGHT 11 Nov 1 1971 PC
• • •
DEATH SENTENCE for the Mediterranean Sea: California's Center for Institutional Studies has written a death warrant for the polluted Mediterranean Sea. The life giving oxygen which keeps a sea "alive" is becoming rapidly depleted. About 19,600 cubic miles of surface water flows into the Mediterranean from the North Atlantic each year. This water is becoming progressively more polluted. In the reverse direction, about 18,600 cubic miles of cold, dense water flows outward into the Atlantic near the ocean floor. In this way, there is a complete turnover of water every 80 years. However, the source of all this water, primarily the North Atlantic, was described recently by Thor Heyerdahl during the voyage of RA-II: "We saw visible oil pollutants 43 out of 57 days during our crossing from Morocco to Barbados ... on the worst days we came into water where we could not wash ourselves ... in fact, we could not dip a bucket into the water unless it would be filled with lumps of oily matter." Previous work by Lord Ritchie-Calder demonstrated that one gallon of oil depletes about 100,000 gallons of sea water of its oxygen content. This situation is being perpetuated by the tons of massive surpluses of two world wars. Governments often times have not disclosed what they dump, nor where they dump it. "No international register of such disposals exists, and many governments are no longer aware of what they did with all of it." Recently, abnormally high levels of arsenic were discovered in the Baltic. Forty years ago 7,000 tons of arsenic had been dumped into the Baltic "sealed" in concrete containers. During World War II allied ships carrying 1,740,250 tons of ammunition, chemical weapons, fuel oil, and other petro-chemicals were sunk in the North Atlantic. Many of the presently "unidentifiable" oil slicks may be due to the break up of these ships. Further contributing to this problem, other sources of oxygen supply such as the Provencal Basin, the upper Adriatic, and the Aegean are even more polluted than the Mediterranean due to a combination of existing wind patterns and man introduced pollutants. It is likely that this combination of factors may succeed in turning the Mediterranean Sea into an "outsize dustpan." L.A. TIMES-POST Nov 25 1971 p8D PFG
• • •
SCIENTISTS at the National Institute of Health inserted a mutant of phage lambda, a virus that naturally infects the bacterium Escherichia coli into human cell cultures. The human cells were derived from a patient suffering from galactosemia, a disease in which there is a lack of the enzyme that breaks down the sugar galactose. The phage lambda contains the galactose operon--the gene required for the synthesis of the transferase enzyme--the enzyme missing from the galactosemic mammalian cells and which is required for breaking down galactase. The cells containing the phage lambda was able to produce biologically active enzyme. These results show that bacterial genes can be biologically active in mammalian cells. Further it establishes the universal nature of the genetic code. Such studies are bringing genetic engineering closer to a practical reality. BIOMEDICAL NEWS (Nov 1971) p3 SFG SFG
• • •
THE COMPLEX LUNG and air sac system of birds provides for one directional flow of gases through the lungs at all times. The direction of gas flow through the lungs is opposite the direction of blood flow. The end result of this countercurrent flow is that more O2 and CO2 can be exchanged than would be possible if bird lungs were mammalian in structure. This permits birds to fly and function normally at altitudes greater than 6,000 meters, the limit for moderately active functioning of man after long acclimatization. Scientific American 225 72 Dec 1971 (student) RB
• • •
CARBON MONOXIDE toxicity is due to binding with hemoglobin with a resultant decrease in oxygen tension in peripheral capillaries. Carbon monoxide has a stronger affinity for hemoglobin than oxygen probably due to the difference in electronegativity between the carbon and oxygen atoms and the resultant high polarity of the carbon monoxide molecule. Surprisingly, cigarette smoking outweighs the contribution made by traffic to carbon monoxide pollution. N.Y. ACADEMY SCIENCES 174 135 (1970) BB
• • •
NINE COUNTIES in the northeastern corner of Indiana make up Economic Region 3. Its 1970 population of just under 1/2 million made it the third ranking area in the state, with approximately 9.5% of Indiana's population.
Table 3-1. Population, Each County, Region 3, Each Census, 1900 through 1970
County 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970
Adams 22,232 21,840 20,503 19,957 21,254 22,393 24,643 26,871
Allen 77,270 93,386 114,303 146,743 155,084 183,722 232,196 280,455
DeKalb 25,711 25,054 25,600 24,911 24,756 26,023 28,271 30,837
Huntington 28,901 28,982 31,671 29,073 29,931 31,400 33,814 34,970
Lagrange 15,284 15,148 14,009 13,780 14,352 15,347 17,380 20,890
Noble 23,533 24,009 22,470 22,404 22,776 25,075 28,162 31,382
Steuben 15,219 14,274 13,360 13,386 13,740 17,087 17,184 20,159
Wells 23,449 22,418 20,509 18,411 19,099 19,564 21,220 23,821
Whitley 17,328 16,892 15,660 15,931 17,001 18,828 20,954 23,395
Region 3 Total 248,927 262,003 278,085 304,596 317,993 359,439 423,824 492,780
INDIANA STATE BD. HEALTH BULLETIN Nov 1971 BB
• • •